


Can't You Be A Little More Aesthetic?

by Draskireis



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Dancing, Getting Together, Haus construction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 09:52:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15905904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draskireis/pseuds/Draskireis
Summary: Nursey catches Dex waltzing a broom when he thought he was alone in the Haus.





	Can't You Be A Little More Aesthetic?

“I’d scream this song—right in your face—if you weeeeeeeeere here.”

The Haus was usually empty at 10am on Tuesdays—Bitty had some kind of Home Ec of Yore class, Chowder had Linguistics of Chinese Languages, and Nursey had his bullshit deductive reasoning credit—Pre-Computer Cryptography from Caesar to Turing.  Not sure what Ollie or Wicks had, but they were never around.  They’d said once, to let him know it was a time when he could install the chandelier, for which he overcharged them to a mercenary degree (but they paid, and happily).

Given that, he’d plugged his laptop into Louis’s (Waffle-Louis, not ex-Louis) terrifying speaker system and put on cleaning music—a mix of punk and emo-proximate and angry rock loud enough to carry over a vacuum, with enough rhythm to set a beat to whatever work he was doing, and with enough different ranges of pitch that no song would be lost to dishwater or vacuum in its entirety.  Since no one was around, he was safe to sing along with Story of the Year.

Dex had already cleaned the Frogs’ bathroom, since it was his turn (Nursey forgot to, and paid the fine—it was almost fine, in the stilted-but-pretending-everything’s-okay world of living together while holding their breath around each other) and checked the state of the appliances.  There wasn’t any indoor maintenance immediately needed, for once.  His laundry was already in the dryer to get a head start before he put it up on the clothesline he’d brought for the basement.

He’d swept his room—even under Nursey’s desk—and had decided that the kitchen and living rooms could do with a sweep, too.  Anthem of Our Dying Day was danceable, so he did a few turns with the broom while he sang along.  Just some rotating boxes.  There wasn’t enough space to really cut loose.  Especially not with the furniture in the way.  It wasn’t often he got to pull out any of his music that the team would label emo, so he might as well fully enjoy it.  The song ended, and he spun the broom around in what would have been a dip.

When the clapping started, slow and sarcastic, Dex dropped the broom.

‘Putting the moves on that broom, Pointy?  I’m shocked you went with ballroom.’  Nursey leaned casually against the door frame, an unlikely miracle of balance.  His arms were crossed, flexing slightly underneath his thin sweater (Dex regretted that he knew it was one of his cotton thrifted ones, which failed utterly to retain any heat whatsoever).  There was—of course—a leaf in his beanie.

‘What the hell else would I do?’  Nursey _had_ to know he was even more awkward without a determinate set of moves.

‘White boy grind on it?  Sway back and forth tenderly and belt Journey?  What even is this?’  His eyes were beetle green, shining with amusement.

‘That was Story of the Year.  This is A Perfect Circle.  I could also waltz the broom to this.’  Dex picked up the broom and finished sweeping the last pile in the room.  ‘I thought you had class.’

Without waiting for Nursey’s answer, Dex stalked into the kitchen to retrieve the dust pan.  Nursey didn’t follow, but was still in the living room when he returned.  Dex ignored him in favor of collecting and binning the piles of dust and debris.  Nursey did follow him when he went down to the basement to hang his clothes up to dry the rest of the way.

‘Why do you keep your talents hidden, Dexy?’

‘Because you’re an ass about them.  To be fair for a moment, since we _are_ trying to work on that, the rest of the team is little better.  If I thought for one moment that I wouldn’t get sarcasm and mocking, I might open up some.  But instead, here we are.’

‘Is that why you won’t sing to me, but you’ll sing to a broom?’

‘One of just _so_ many reasons.  Which I will not enumerate for you.  For now, I’m going to take my laptop out to the reading room, and claim that space as mine for a while.  And mark that I cleaned the bathroom.’

Finished, Dex returned the broom and dust pan to the closet, ticked his contribution to the orderly running of the Haus off on the chore wheel, and took his laptop upstairs with him.  He wasn’t paying attention to Nurse, but he wasn’t gonna ignore him over this.  He was… more disappointed that his time to let a bit loose was cut short, really.  Nurse was just being himself, having repeatedly demonstrated that he couldn’t help it.

His laptop cord snaked out the window in a path along the wall that, while linearly inefficient, meant that there was no possible way for Nurse to trip on it.  Dex stared at his Network Design readings—proofs on the impossibility of a communications problem over an imperfect network—and ruminated.  He told himself that he didn’t have time to sulk, but Nurse puttering around in their room made it hard to concentrate.  He wanted to know what Nurse was doing to make noise audible through his headphones—but forced himself not to check.  Not to look or investigate or pay any attention to anything but the words in his book that he was reading for the fourth time now.

When Dex eventually left the Reading Room to get ready for class, he saw that Nurse had rearranged the room.  Without consulting him.  The bunk beds had shifted down the room’s long wall into a corner.  One dresser was stranded in the middle of the floor, looking forlorn, useless, and out of place.  There was a sad face drawn on a post-it attached to the back of the dresser.  The other dresser abutted the foot of the bed.

Their desks, which had previously jutted into the room (facing each other and perpendicular to the other long wall), now each faced directly at one of the short walls—Nursey had given Dex the window view (meaning he had to climb at least partly over his own desk to get inside.  A dubious kindness, but probably well-meant, if he were giving Nursey credit.  Which he should be).  There was a note on his desk, on Nursey’s stationery: _we can stack the dressers later, and you’ll have your own tiny dance floor whenever you need it_.

Once empty, their floor would accommodate the tiniest of waltzes.

They didn’t actually talk about it for two days.  Dex got used to the room’s new layout—he suspected Nurse had been humoring him by giving him control over the initial layout.  Six prior years in dorms had given him a sense of rooms—along with whatever number of times he might have rearranged his room at home.  Nursey was conspicuously silent on the subject, and friendly on most others.  Less chirpy than usual.  It was nice.

Thursday was one of Dex’s long days—morning practice, then physics lab for the remainder of the morning.  A short break for lunch, followed by Classical Mechanics itself.  Then next door for Network Hell, a lifting session before dinner, and off to alumni relations for a couple hours of work.  By the time he got back to the Haus, Dex was ready to drop.  Instead, Nursey had dropped several broken hockey sticks and half a dozen rolls of duct tape on the floor of their room, and was looking hopefully at him from his desk by the door.

‘Duct tape and broken hockey sticks, Nursey?’

‘To make sure the dressers are stable while stacked.  I figured I’d take the top one, since this whole thing was my idea.  Plus, I have the top bunk already.’

That stopped Dex at the entrance to the room.

‘Several conditions on this construction project.  I’ll list them, then go get my toolbox from the basement while you think about them.  First, be really sure of this: if you agree to this layout, then shit’s getting affixed together and to the wall.  We’ll turn the dressers so they open into the room rather than away from the bed.  That will involve screws—not duct tape.  Second, I’m taking the top dresser, because even though you have the top bunk, I would prefer to not come back to find your body after you broke your neck leaning over from the ladder or else falling off a chair to get clothes out.  Third,’ Dex finished, looking Nursey dead in the eye, ‘don’t agree to this if it’s just to, like, appease me for Tuesday or whatever.’

Having said his piece, Dex nodded at Nursey and turned back toward the stairs.  Bitty was in the kitchen, baking something and talking to—Louis, it sounded like.  It smelled like cloves and vanilla as he passed the kitchen door to get to the basement stairs.  Dex headed down to get his toolbox and the drill that Jack had gotten ‘the Haus,’ (which mostly meant Dex, as the only person trusted to use it).  On a whim, he also carried up Johnson’s box of potentially useful parts.  By the time he got back upstairs, Nursey had hidden the duct tape.

His roommate was looking rather… eager about this whole thing, but he was at least as engaged as usual, and his eyes were a bright, mossy green, so it was probably earnest.  Whatever.  It wasn’t news to Dex that Nursey got excited over weird things.

‘I can’t believe I hadn’t already anchored the beds to the wall, since you insisted on the top bunk.’

Dex set his toolbox, the drill, and the box of miscellaneous bits and parts on his desk.  He opened the last of those and began to rummage.

‘A fixable oversight, Dexy.  Now, how can I help?’

‘Give me a second to see if Johnson left behind anything useful for affixing beds to walls.’

Dex pulled out a series of strange but highly situationally-useful items—the door to a cat carrier, a glasses case that looked like it was designed to hang on or by a bed, a height-adjustable monitor stand—before he came upon a set of four brackets that looked about the right size to go around the bunk beds’ posts.  He took those, got some screws out of his toolbox, and plugged the drill in.

‘Your job, Nursey, is very important.  Hold the bed so that it’s still and in exactly the place you want it.’

‘You make it sound like you want me to seduce the bed, Dex.’  Nursey raised a sly eyebrow.

‘Think of it however you want to, dude.’

It wasn’t difficult, although Nursey being so close behind him, holding the bed where he wanted it (was it really necessary for him to stand _that_ near Dex?), was rather distracting.  Once he got the first bracket in around each post, he relieved Nursey of that job and told him to situate the dresser flush to the wall and the bed and to take out the top two drawers.

The second pair of brackets were much faster to get onto the wall.  Then he turned his attention to nailing Nursey’s dresser to the wall.

‘So, dancing?  How’d you get into that?’  (Did he have to ask disarming questions when Dex’s head was literally in a dresser?)

‘Uh.  My sister.  Decided that ballet wasn’t cool anymore once the lessons started costing enough money that Ma had to discourage her from continuing.  Siobhan started taking her along to go dancing to make it seem less like she was dating her boyfriend.  Kells wanted to dance, but didn’t like asking random guys, cuz she was in middle school.  So she started dragging me along.  Now we get to lift the second dresser up.’

‘Mmm, _get_ to, yes.’  Nursey made no move toward the dresser in the middle of their room.

‘Shut up—this whole thing was your idea.’  Dex took the drawers out of his dresser and set them on the floor out of the way.

‘Yeah, cuz I wanted to do something nice for you.’

‘Thanks?  You know you didn’t have to, right?’  Dex moved to the far side of the dresser, thinking about Nursey’s definition of ‘something nice’ and how it mapped suspiciously well onto his own notion of ‘grand gesture.’

‘I know.  But you wanted to dance, even if it was just with a broom.  And you wanted to not be given shit about it, so you can at least have a tiny dance in here.  I’m sorry I gave you shit about that.’

‘It’s fine, Nursey.  I appreciate your saying that.  Now lift.’

Once his dresser was atop Nursey’s, he took a pencil and marked several points on each dresser where the walls were thicker from internal structure.  He positioned one of the bladeless sticks so it lined up with the marks.

‘Hold, please.’

‘As you command.’

‘Command?  Really?’

‘Fewer overtones than “as you wish?”’

Dex looked blankly at Nursey, decided that he couldn’t mean what Dex wanted him to mean, and turned his attention to drilling screws through the hockey stick and into the dresser.  They repeated the holding and the drilling for a second and third hockey sticks.  Then it was just a matter of putting the drawers back into Dex’s dresser.  Once the lifting was done (he did not surreptitiously check Nursey out when he put the top drawer in.  He did _not_ ) Dex wiped his face on his sleeve.  There was a lot more space in the room now—shocking what happens when you stack stuff.

‘So now that you have this dance floor, you gonna show me how you can dance?’

‘No broom up here.’  Dex was _not going_ to take that bait.

‘You can’t _only_ dance with brooms.  You danced with your sisters, too.’  Nursey had an evaluating look on his face.  Plots and mischief and danger.

‘Yeah, but they had me lead.’  Smirking as desperate cover for his rapid-onset blush, Dex added ‘the brooms, too.’

‘You need a follow, then?  Luckily for you, there were too many dudes in my middle school dance class, so we had to rotate through following, too.  I’m sure I’d be less stiff than the broom, at least.’

Nursey held his arms up in follow’s frame.  His expression was hopeful, but eyes were apprehensive, like he wasn’t sure how Dex might react.

‘Care to dance, Pointy?  You can even put on some of your music.  Seems to have more waltzes than mine.’

‘You might be less stiff, but will you actually go where I put you?’

‘If you ask nicely.’

Ignoring Nursey and his arms, Dex got his laptop out of his bag and set it up.

‘Fast or slow?’

‘If you want to slow dance with me, Dexy, you only have to ask.’  It was like his chirping tone, his needling tone—but there weren’t any barbs this time. 

‘As you command.  I’m asking—fast or slow?’  This had to be flirting.  He could tell because he was sure his face was going to combust any minute.  It would just burst into flames and take the whole Haus with it.  Only the couch would remain.

‘Slow, Dex.  Waltz me to dad rock.’

Dex snorted.  He pulled up Lost and Gone Forever.  So Long wasn’t truly slow, but it was a good song and had a strong waltz beat.  And Dex knew the lyrics.  In case he was reading this right.  He queued up a few other waltzes to follow, in case he got to press his luck.  He didn’t know if he wanted to be reading this right, but Nursey was still there, holding his arms up and waiting to be danced with.  Nursey’s brow furrowed at the opening notes—he seemed to recognize the song.

He stepped into Nursey’s space, and organized his frame to match Nursey’s.  He felt Nursey’s back stiffen briefly before relaxing back into his right hand.  His right hand was light on Dex’s left, and he shifted easily back when Dex started to lead.

Nursey was a much more responsive follow than the broom.

They rotated around the small open space in the room.  There wasn’t enough room for more than a loosely rotated box and some twinkles, but they made it work (Dex recognized that it wouldn’t have if Nursey hadn’t been as good a follow).  Midway through, to test how Nursey’d react, Dex started to sing.  Just quietly, just like it was what one did while dancing.

‘Yes, I'm be blue, but from holding my breath/ Like I have from the start/ I'm a villain and I should confess…’

There no particular reason he’d chosen this song.  Nope, none.

When he started singing, Nursey inhaled sharply through his nose, and his eyes snapped to Dex’s.  His frame stiffened, tightening his hold on Dex as if he really needed the support.  So Dex sang, as Nursey clung to him for the remainder of the song.  He shouldn’t have been out of breath at the end.

‘That was surprisingly good.’

‘You’re a pretty good follow.’

‘The singing.  You’re good at dancing, too, but that was established the other day with the broom.  I didn’t expect—you said you wouldn’t.’  Nursey snapped his mouth shut.  It was a relief to see him flustered.

‘You drove home the point that you weren’t gonna make fun of me for it.’

Dex ducked his head, breaking eye contact at last.  Nursey was still in his arms, and it was getting weird.  Although it was, at the same time, as nice as he’d imagined.  As nice as he hadn’t dared hope.  Nursey let go of Dex’s hand and moved to gently cup his cheek.

‘If this is what being nice to you gets me, I don’t know how often I can do it.  Too much and it might kill me.’

Dex didn’t say anything.  It was kinda hard to think with Nursey’s hand on his cheek, smoothing his thumb back and forth across a cheekbone.  He just kinda full-body leaned into Nursey and hoped that it might convey some message.

Nursey started back-leading to Between the Bars, and Dex shifted the hold so they were dancing in a full-body hold.  Nursey tucked his chin onto Dex’s shoulder.  They didn’t talk until The Hollow came on, and it jarred Nursey’s rhythm because it took a while for the waltz rhythm to take over.

‘Do you normally cuddle up to everyone you dance with like this, Nursey?’

‘Since it should already be abundantly clear what’s going on, only if I like ‘em.’

‘Yeah.  I.  Just wanted to be sure.  Was scared to ask.’

‘You still haven’t.’

‘Dick.  Uh.  Can I kiss you?’

‘Yeah.  Might be hard while dancing, but it’s worth a shot.’

‘We can do it, if you don’t mind white boy hands in your hair.’

‘Yeah, Dexy, if that’s what you need.’

Dex shifted his arms through Nursey’s armpits and held him by the back of his head.  He could lead with his elbows.  Their feet still moved, and their upper bodies were properly still—ideal for dancing and making out.  It was hard to concentrate on dancing while kissing—and on kissing while dancing—but it was good.  The press of Nursey’s lips on his, and the heat of their bodies moving in time to the music.  When the song ended, Nursey tipped them both over into Dex’s bunk and plastered himself to Dex’s back.

‘That was fuckin’ classy, Dexy.  Where’d you learn that one?’

‘Siobhan’s dancer boyfriend pulled that on her a couple times.  I’m glad it worked—hadn’t really had much opportunity to practice.  So.  Where do we go from here?’

‘Well, we’re already cuddling.  So maybe we can go out for coffee sometime?  Like, be formal about starting things even if going from friends to dating is mostly a mental shift?  Well, and the addition of make-outs and cuddling.  We all know you’re secretly mad cuddly, bro.’

‘So, dating then?’

‘As you wish.’


End file.
